


Give me a hand

by wifebeast__s



Series: LA By Night Fluff Fest 2020 [4]
Category: L.A. By Night (Web Series)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, LA By Night Fluff Fest 2020, Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wifebeast__s/pseuds/wifebeast__s
Summary: This one was originally a 5 times thing that had nothing to do with either of these two, but then...This is based on a true story! Except with me and my honey and a sink that was being replaced. And honey was NOT amused, but I laughed for like an hour after.Anyway...here it is!
Series: LA By Night Fluff Fest 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731382
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Give me a hand

**Author's Note:**

> This one was originally a 5 times thing that had nothing to do with either of these two, but then...
> 
> This is based on a true story! Except with me and my honey and a sink that was being replaced. And honey was NOT amused, but I laughed for like an hour after.
> 
> Anyway...here it is!

It’s a silly thing, she knows, a throwback to life Before, when Halloween was all fun and games, when monsters weren’t real things. Things she dealt with on a daily basis, trading favors or information for blood.

Not anymore, she reminds herself.

Now she works with X, and they work together to help the Anarchs keep the city free and clear of the oppression of the Camarilla.

But she’s kept some trinkets from Before, has carried them from place to place in a small plastic tote. Sometimes she’ll open the box, sort through the items and consider them…consider keeping them. She has kept most of it, but she’s parted with some, too.

Not this one, this silly thing.

It’s a hand. A fake hand, a silicone model, made to look real. She doesn’t remember exactly when she got it, but it became a strange staple in her house. Too lazy to pack it away with the other Halloween decorations one year, she’d made a game of moving it around the apartment.

She called it Thing.

Sometimes, Before but also After, she called it Jasper, but only when she was feeling particularly lonely and was looking for his particular brand of dry wit and advice. 

Mostly she called it Thing.

When she first…purchased? found? She cannot say for sure anymore…when she first came to have it in her possession anyway, it was a normal looking hand. If a severed hand, cut off at the wrist, but still bloodless, could be considered normal.

Over the years she started to add to it. 

First she adorned it with rings. Cheap things that she’d get out of a quarter machine at the grocery store or twined bits of plastic that she made while thinking or working and needed something to do with her hands.

Of course a single hand is limited to five fingers, so when adding and swapping rings became more a chore than a fun little distraction, she found other ways to decorate it.

Eventually, and she could not say when, she resorted to markers. It began as a simple design, just some lines around the wrist, maybe idly wondering about a tattoo of her own. Over time it became more intricate, more colorful.

She chuckles to herself and takes it out of the plastic bin, setting it on the shelf that X has granted her in the apartment they share. It was a lucky find, a basement unit with a bedroom with no windows. It was cheap because who wants a bedroom with no windows? Well…

A crashing sound comes from the kitchen, and she winces.

X has taken to cooking for her in the evenings when he wakes up. It’s a sweet gesture, but she thinks that any recipes or cooking skills he may have had were lost, along with his name, in the embrace. 

The cacophony doesn’t last, so she stays put, sorting through her belongings: a bracelet that Jasper had given her, her acceptance letter for grad school, a pair of earrings that had belonged to her mother, a chewed up pencil, a single piece of confetti - the large, sparkling kind, not a tiny scrap, and a few other odds and ends.

Nothing gets cut today.

And there’s nothing else she’d like to display, so she closes the lid on the box, and with it the memories, and slides it back to its resting place.

Another loud bang from the kitchen. She considers going in to check, but she hears X muttering to himself, and she thinks it best for her to stay out of his way.

He’s been agitated lately. He’s tried to cover it, mask it, but she thinks he forgets that his vitae gives her some of his abilities. She’s noticed.

She knows that he would not intentionally hurt her. Of course she knows that. She also knows that he may not get a choice in the matter all the time.

So she waits.

“Chloe!”

He sounds…not pleased, but maybe not vicious, either.

“Yeah?”

“Can you give me a hand in here?!”

She stands, turns to go to the kitchen, but stops in her tracks. Something tugs at her attention for her periphery. She turns to see the hand, colorful, adorned in cheap finery, and her lips curl up with her idea.

She grabs the decoration and marches purposefully to the kitchen.

X has pulled out a drawer and is trying to reach behind another to grab at something that she - and likely he - cannot see.

“Hey, X,” she announces herself casually.

“Hey. So I opened the drawer too fast maybe, I don’t know, and the spatula - you know the small one, with the…and it fell. You know I don’t like to use the big one.”

“Of course. Here, let me help you up.”

He doesn’t look at her - even better.

She places the hand in his own outstretched one.

He grips it.

He turns to look at her, to allow himself to be helped up, maybe confused at the size and shape on his shoulder.

She watches his face go from gratitude, to confusion, to concern.

He stares at the hand, looks up at her.

She grins, and he throws his head back and laughs, spatula, food, and hopefully troubles forgotten for the moment.


End file.
